The hall, with its intrusive pillars, low ceilings, bad lighting and unworkable loading dock, is considered an obsolete abomination by nearly all accounts.

Cuyahoga County commissioners on Thursday chose the mall site for a new center and a medical mart. The other site seriously considered was property behind Tower City Center, overlooking the Cuyahoga River.

Tower City was the favored location of local business leaders and convention center experts for its close proximity to downtown restaurants and hotels. It is next to the Renaissance and Ritz-Carlton hotels and has a direct RTA rapid-transit train connection to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. But most said the current center site would work, as long as the building was replaced.

The marketing director for the National Art Materials Trade Association, Rick Munisteri, decided as soon as he set foot in the current center that he wouldn't bring his group to Cleveland this year.

He was impressed, however, with everything else about the city. He said the 1,800 or so people who attend his group's annual gathering can explore downtown from the mall site.

"Downtown Cleveland's not all that large," he said. "It's easy to get around."

Either the mall or Tower City site, properly developed, could transform Cleveland into a formidable competitor, said Doug Ducate, president of the Center for Exhibition Industry Research. He said Clevelanders who dismiss their city as a loser in the convention game because of its winters are underestimating its virtues and the changes in the convention and trade-show industry. Chief among those: A year-round convention calendar and many organizers who favor lower-cost venues convenient for their memberships and easy to reach.

"You've got so many features downtown," Ducate said.

"Cleveland, as a destination, is right in the wheelhouse of what people can be looking for, especially with this economic downturn," said Brian Knapp, executive vice president of a convention-organizing firm called IMN Solutions. The company picks convention locations for nearly 100 clients.

Ashburn, of the Association for Iron and Steel Technology, said his association had gathered in Cleveland on a regular basis since 1914 but had a particularly disappointing experience in 2006. Attendees complained of cramped meeting space, aging infrastructure and poor cell phone service in the below-ground convention center, he said.

The medical mart is expected to attract health-care professional-association shows to the convention center, supplementing other business at the center, such as expositions for groups and associations that shop for sites at "tier two" cities such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. These cities are considered a notch below top-tier convention destinations: Las Vegas, Orlando and Chicago.

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